Sussex news bulletin: Monday, December 18

Sussex World reporter Sam Morton brings you the news making the headlines on Monday, December 18

Transcript

00:00 Hello, I'm Sam Morton and here's your daily Sussex News Bulletin on Monday December 18th.

00:04 A missing dog who had been living in a Sussex woodland for six years has been rescued. Rose

00:10 went missing from Ashurst Wood in 2017, just 24 hours after she was adopted and was finally

00:16 rescued on Saturday December 9th. Now aged 12 with a grey muzzle and eyebrows, a concerned

00:23 member of the public spotted her near Crawley Down at the end of November and inquired about

00:27 her in the local area. She learned the locals were aware of the dog who had been living alone in the

00:32 area for years. Meanwhile an NHS trust will temporarily close its dementia assessment and

00:37 diagnosis services in Sussex after Christmas. The Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said it

00:44 has made the difficult decision to temporarily reduce the memory assessment and dementia

00:48 services provided in West Sussex and in High Weald, Lewis and Havens in East Sussex from

00:54 January 2024 until the end of March 2024. The trust is also planning to reduce the number of

00:59 dementia beds currently provided in Sussex from 50 to 40. A spokesperson for the trust said the

01:06 NHS across Sussex has been working hard to put plans in place that will allow services to remain

01:10 safe and ensure local people can continue to access the best possible care as quickly as possible

01:16 over the busy winter period. These plans focus on the national NHS priorities set out ahead of

01:21 Christmas and New Year to protect patient safety, prioritise urgent emergency care and achieve

01:27 financial balance. In order to achieve these plans it is necessary for some services to be

01:32 temporarily changed or reduced to allow staff to be redeployed to other services so they can continue

01:37 to be safe and of the highest quality. There's also a need to reduce the use of NHS staff in

01:42 order to manage resources effectively. The trust said it has reviewed all of its services to

01:47 identify areas where they're able to redeploy staff as quickly as possible. The trust reassured

01:52 it will continue to see patients who have already started their treatment and assessment programme

01:57 and will remain open to referrals. Finally motorists are continuing to be impacted by delays

02:02 on the A27 at Lansing due to ongoing gasworks. Photos taken near the Manor roundabout on Monday

02:08 morning show a solitary SGN gasworker testing for a gas leak with the road partially blocked eastbound.

02:15 Gas distribution company SGN said its engineers are carrying out emergency repairs to the gas

02:20 main on the A27 at Lansing. A spokesperson said "we know this is a busy route and we have specialist

02:26 equipment on site to make sure our repairs are carried out as quickly as possible. All being

02:31 well we hope to have completed our repairs and be off the road by some time tomorrow."

02:35 For all those stories and much more you can see our website sussexworld.co.uk